Date of Birth

[Richard]

Does anyone have any idea about the date of birth of this Williams adjustable wrench. It’s about five inches long. My grandfather gave it to me 48 years ago. It has two dates, to my eyes it appears the patent date is sometime in September of 1889 and revised or reissued on October 18th, 1892. The wrench however may have been made several years later.  Alloy Artifacts has been little help.

[OilyRascal]

I have no dating advise to offer, but that may well be the finest looking adjustable I've ever seen......very nice, and to have it come from your grandfather.  wow

I'm certain someone will come along to assist.  You don't see a lot of unanswered questions here.

[Papaw]

I can look in Copes when I get home in the morning.

[Lewill2]

As with all items marked with patent dates you can determine the earliest they were made but you can't tell the actual year they were made unless they were date coded. I have a few wrenches that are marked patent pending and the same wrench with a patent date. In this instance you can assume one was made prior to the patent being issued and the other after the patent was issued. This gives you a window as to when it was made but not a definte year. They other way you can sometimes narrow it down is if you research how long the company was in business.

[Papaw]

Copes shows an advertising cut of a wrench like yours from Iron Age 1895. Williams was founded in 1884 as a drop forging company, and incorporated in 1895.
I think the patent on your wrench is by Henry Hammond, issued in 1889, and reissued in 1892.
Your wrench is probably from before 1920, when Williams took over the monkey wrench business of Whitman & Barnes and marketed wrenches under the W&B name.
http://www.google.com/patents/USRE11277?printsec=drawing&dq=ininventor:Henry+ininventor:Hammond&ei=022AUOHcF8TQqgHB0YGICQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

[Richard]

In 1917 my grandfather went to work as a mechanic at the age of 17. He said he had the wrench before he was hired because mechanics’ needed to have their own tools before they would be hired, or buy them on credit from the dealership at fantastic prices. He told me he purchased all his tools used, so I’m certain the wrench is from before 1917. He also said that in those days Fords arrived at the dealership as sub-assemblies in wood boxes and a mechanic’s job was to assemble the car.